Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Sunday, April 22, 2012
This week I was fortunate enough to see Ladies in Lavender at Royal & Derngate, Northampton. For anyone who's never seen the film, it's a gentle story set in Cornwall in the 1930s, which follows what happens when two ageing spinster sisters find and take in a young violinist who's washed up on the beach. There's no sex or violence and no bad language.
It would have been easy to overwrite the play, but it was beautifully understated. This can only work on stage or film if you have actors capable of conveying emotions and meanings without overtly stating them. At Royal & Derngate the cast was headed by Hayley Mills and Belinda Lang–both excellent actors. The last scene had the cast listening to the radio for three minutes. The audience was totally rapt watching the emotions on their faces. It isn't often these days that an audience is treated to three minutes of stillness.
The experience brought home to me, once more, how important it is when writing to show not tell and to trust your readers/audience to understand.